


Leviathan Stirring

by rightsidethru



Series: here there be sea monsters [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Star Trek, Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-20 13:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightsidethru/pseuds/rightsidethru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I grew up dreaming about the stars. Mom and Dad would come home from missions, souvenirs from alien planets, other people, stuffed into their duffels until they were nearly bursting at the seams. I grew up dreaming about the sleek lines of starships, the endlessness of space, the steady press of a Captain's chair against my back.</p>
<p>Then the Kaijuu came--and planet after planet began to fall to the monsters.</p>
<p>Exploration no longer seemed all that important, not when we were losing our planet in a war that we didn't understand but had to make a stand in, anyway.</p>
<p>The sleek lines of a ship became the hard-hitting mass of a Jaeger. The Captain's stripes became a Ranger's suit. The heavy weight of responsibility of the conn instead shifted to the constant presence of Dad's mind in my own.</p>
<p>And then the storm broke and everything went to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: I Breathe Grief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tricksandarrows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tricksandarrows/gifts).



> _Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up._
> 
> I blame tricksandarrows.
> 
> The End.

**Prologue**

\---

_Breathe._

_Just breathe._

**

Awareness came back to Jim in stages: the complete, solid blackness of the abyss shifting to the softer, more tangent shades of grey--ghosts flitted through the hidden corners of his mind, lingering sometimes, words and faces and sensations bleeding to neural blue, and then there was _terror terror regret horror love agony terror pride **terrorterrorterror** I love you, son_. Loneliness: empty, an individual instead of a unit for the first time since he turned eighteen and had decided to follow the rest of his family into the Pan Pacific Defense Corps.

He and his father had still been connected by the neural bridge when part of the Jaeger had been ripped loose and then slammed through its body by the Kaijuu, and Jim would always remember his father's death from both his own perspective and George Kirk's. Would always remember the sight of the heavy iron beam thrusting through the outer shell of the Jaeger and the feeling of too-hot blood pouring down his (his father's) chest as his (his father's) life slipped away between his ( _his_ , desperate to stop the blood flow, hands shaky with panic and the bone-deep knowledge that he was about to lose his father no matter how hard he pressed down on the wound) fingers.

Dual memories sparked and flared brighter, reaching out to grasp at his limbs to drag him under once more--

And Jim finally opened his eyes, the bright blue of his gaze glazed and blurry for long, stumbling moments until finally steadying and focusing on the frowning, familiar face of the Corps' head doctor. Relief flickered through Bones' dark eyes, there and gone again--but Jim had known the older man for too long not to have been able to see it and know what that relief meant.

_Too close, too close_.

(Dad wasn't the only one who almost died this time around.)

" _Jim_ ," the doctor growled out, voice raspy from too much worry and whiskey both, and waved the tricorder that had pretty much become another limb over the Ranger's face and body, attention now sharpening on the results that the small machine must have been giving him. Too tired and too soul-weary to fight the gruff mother henning, Jim allowed Bones to hover unimpeded. Not able to stand the veiled concern that still lingered in that dark pair of eyes, though, the Ranger finally closed his own. Bright blue eyes, thick blonde hair, a tan that always seemed to linger, no matter the season: Jim had always been George and Winona Kirk's golden child, shining strong no matter how dark the day--

Though Jim felt more than a little tarnished.

"Sam? My mom?" he asked when the soft whining of the tricorder finally ground to a halt and the tension-filled silence yet again started to fill the med bay. It was a question that didn't need to be asked, though Jim was feeling masochistic enough to ask it, anyway: the silence that stretched out beyond the muted beeping of the machines hooked up to his body was telling. He knew. He _knew_. But, still, he needed to ask.

"…I'm sorry, Jim."

His family was dead.

**

_Breathe._

_Just breathe._


	2. idle silences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence."  
> ~ Benjamin Franklin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for both the comments and the kudos! <3 I love getting both, so please keep them coming~ ;D
> 
> On a side note, this is my first multi-chaptered story for... quite some time. The chapters will definitely be a little short in the beginning, but they will start getting longer once I get back into the swing of things. Until then: thank you for your patience!

**idle silences**

\---

There had always been something about his family—some quirk, some genetic disposition, _something_ —that gave them peace only when they had a piece of technology in hand to dismantle and put back together, as good as ( _better_ ) than new. Idle hands made the Devil’s playthings: a phrase that Jim never really understood, still didn’t, but a favorite saying of Winona’s nonetheless—particularly when someone tried to keep her confined to med bay for one reason or another.

Regardless of anything—everything—else, though, there was peace when Jim was able to immerse himself in any piece of technology. Wiring ran smoothly between his fingers, screws and nuts and bolts gave way beneath the determined pressure of the blue-eyed Ranger’s tools, and codes spiraled out before him, whispering secrets of how and why and potential not yet achieved—and it was as beautiful as it was distracting, and the _Enterprise_ came alive beneath his touch and _sang_.

“Jim, what the hell are you doing here? You know that you’re not allowed to be released from the med quarters until they’ve finished with your psych evals.”

The reminder as to why he had snuck out of the room tightened the skin ‘round Jim’s eyes, the Ranger just barely managing to hide his grimace of distaste with the wrench currently clenched between his teeth: knowing there was no real point in snapping back at McCoy, not when the doctor was only concerned for him and his well-being—whatever meaning that might actually take at the moment.

“You know that I can never sit still, Bones,” Jim eventually replied once the wrench left his mouth and his nimble fingers finished tapping out additions to the Jaeger’s coding. “Besides, Scotty loves it when I come and help out in Engineering.”

“And that’s what’s terrifying,” the doctor muttered, though still made sure that Jim would be able to hear him, even over the sound of blowtorches and drills that typically filled the garage as various technicians worked around the clock to get the Jaeger battle ready yet again. Though Bones wouldn’t be able to see it from this particular angle, Jim rolled his eyes and continued scrolling through the computer screen, stopping here and there when something managed to catch his attention—and the older man, knowing just how stubborn Jim could be over his own health, continued on with his lecture: “More importantly, we haven’t managed to get your brain scans done because you keep disappearing when it’s time. For God’s sake, man, you know how important they are—no Ranger has ever survived the death of their co-pilot while the neural handshake was still active.”

The words sparked memoriesfeelingssensations _Dad_ , and it took more strength than Jim was willing to admit to push everything away, burying it deep and dark and _please just let me forget_. Let it rot away until there wasn’t anything left and the pain turned into less than nothing.

“It was a week ago, Bones. If I haven’t dropped dead by now, then there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll continue to live.”

“Dammit, Jim! _Stop being so flippant!_ ”

Rage and worry flared brighter, burning so much more steadily as Bones’ words snapped out between them both, and though Jim had been expecting it, there was still nothing that the younger man could do to stop the abrupt flinch, the aborted motion to move further away from McCoy. It was that gesture, however, that broke the rage and coaxed the worry and concern to burn brighter still, and Bones’ eyes were too dark when he crouched down so that he was no longer looming over Jim. The appearance of the tricorder was expected, though the Ranger did little to hide his sigh of resigned irritation as Bones began to wave it over the side of his head. It took only a moment more before the results were up on the tiny display.

Bones’ gaze narrowed dangerously. “…the readings are higher than what you normally test at.”

If anything, the doctor’s comment was able to provoke dark amusement in the blonde man. Stifling a chuckle, Jim returned his vivid gaze back to the computer screen and the _Enterprise_ ’s coding for her right arm. “That’s part of the reason why I’m hiding out here, Bones. It’s quieter—less people, larger distances between them. The med bay was getting to be a bit…” a gesture, encompassing so many meanings though Jim finished with a much simpler explanation “…too much.”

Too loud, too quiet, too much strained tension each time a medical emergency arose: hyper-awareness sinking into the air, making it thicker and harder to breathe, frantic desperation-determination putting Jim on edge and pushing him headlong into waking nightmares.

The Kirks had always been the best amongst the Rangers, and one of the main reasons for that was their scores on psi abilities: easier to slip along a neural bridge with someone when you were not only related to them but could also feel their emotions in and out of the handshake. A connection that bled over, linking the family close and closer still (unnaturally close, unhealthily close, but this was a war and they were soldiers and that didn’t make it okay, not really, but it was _necessary_ )—and others’ emotions just grated that much more irritatingly against Jim’s nerve endings when he no longer had a brother, a mother, a father to help act as a buffer between ‘family’ and ‘Other.’

Bones was more than he looked, however, and his dark, knowing gaze zeroed in on Jim. “And for how long have you been scoring this high, Jim?” he instead asked, squinty-eyed and suspicious with Jim answer/non-answer.

“…a while.”

“ _Dammit, Jim_! How the hell am I supposed to help you if you refuse to _tell me these things_?!” The concern was still there, laced within each word as well as a sharp tone coming from the doctor, but the anger and irritation had returned, as well—familiar enough that it was an easy, practiced motion for Jim to push it aside, to ignore it and its insistent ringing, instead returning his attention to the _Enterprise_ and the tweaked coding that he was hoping to slip past Admiral Pike this time around.

“Don’t worry so much, Bones,” Jim replied easily enough, and the words were ones that had passed from the blonde Ranger’s mouth enough times that both knew that Jim was only placating his best friend. “There’ve been no adverse affects so far and, besides, nothing can really be done about it—science has been busy enough with the Kaijuu that nulling psi abilities is a possibility only in the far future. So why think about it?”

Maybe he _had_ been too flippant—and McCoy’s spiking irritation pretty much proved that—but Jim’s family was dead, his dad had been firmly implanted in his brain when he died, and there really wasn’t anything that Bones _could_ do, not when his and his family’s ratings had increased with each and every neural bridge connection (and sure, okay, his results had skyrocketed even further a week ago, but that was something that Jim didn’t want to yet consider and so he _didn’t_ ).

Despite the flippancy, the casual disregard for his own well-being, the blonde’s words _did_ manage to get him what he wanted: with threats about hypoing Jim into submission later on, especially if Jim didn’t return early enough for McCoy to run some tests, Bones finally left his friend in quiet if not necessarily in peace.

It didn’t take much longer until silence yet again settled bone-deep into the _Enterprise_ ’s cockpit.

_Just keep hanging on, Jim. There’s no such thing as a no-win scenario._

“But I don’t believe that anymore, Dad,” Jim whispered to the shade of his father’s voice, pain forcing him to close his eyes tightly as he leaned forward to rest his forehead tiredly against the cool metal of the Jaeger’s wall. He pressed his skin harder against the metal, wanting to shove the words from his mind—not quite a memory, a presence of a ghost: his father not quite dead, lingering in the crevices of the abyss within his mind.

Not dead not dead not dead ( _he **is** dead_ )—

And his father’s words did not give him hope. Only loneliness.


	3. t'hy'la

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to **allochthon**. You're an awesome person.  <3
> 
> In addition: Once more, many thanks to all those who have left kudos and comments!

**t'hy'la**

\---

From the moment that he had opened his eyes in the med bay after his last disastrous mission, Jim had waited for the other shoe to drop.

Jaegers had always been in short supply: too many credits went into each to allow them to become more readily available, and the fleet of engineers that cared for each mech were required, by necessity, to be highly specialized—overall, it was a difficult weapon corp to maintain, and the pain-in-the-ass elements became that much more _more_ (more troublesome, more ineffective, more effective, more necessary, more desperate) when one took into consideration that so few people were able to pilot a Jaeger. Supply and demand was heavily skewed towards ‘demand,’ and—no longer having a copilot to help him run the _Enterprise_ —Jim more than half expected Admiral Pike to drop him completely from the program to start looking for a new team to pilot his beautiful Lady.

Instead, Pike did something Jim never expected of him—never in a million years.

The Admiral sent out a call to Honolulu, recalling the personnel at Pearl Harbor, and, two days later, _Gipsy Danger_ began calling San Francisco her new home.

It was… different… seeing another Jaeger filling up the hangar’s space where the _Enterprise_ rest and recovered between Kaijuu attacks. There was more than enough room for them both (more than enough room for five Jaegers, though that time had long ago passed), but angles—routines, movements, storage—everything had to be adjusted, even just a little bit, to accommodate the _Enterprise_ ’s new ‘roommate.’ The Jaeger _and_ the staff that followed in her wake.

And here it was, the other shoe having fallen: but it wasn’t at all what Jim had been expecting.

He had expected to be put down as another statistic, another pilot lost against the monsters from the deep—no matter the fact that he was still alive, the youngest Kirk might as well have been dead for the use he had for the Admiralty. (And how that thought _stung_ , burning brighter with the loss of his family.) Yet:

“Take the time to heal, son. I’ve been told by your doctor friend that the severed bond packed a pretty big wallop. So take the time to heal—the _Enterprise_ will be waiting for you when you’re ready, and we’ll keep looking until we can find another compatible pilot for you. _Heal_ , Jim. I’ll take care of the rest.”

He had.

\--and he had managed to bring one of the most legendary teams here, to give Jim the time he needed to recover, and that realization still couldn’t stop him from waiting for that shoe to drop in more expected ways (because he was _alone_ , even surrounded by people, because there would never again be that comforting touch in the back of his mind), but the gesture—that reassurance—still tightened his chest with the feeling of _safe harbor_ (useless to feel that way, he knew— _he knew_ —but nothing could make that feeling leave).

It was harder than normal (a boulder lodged within his mind, refusing to move) to shove the thoughts away, to instead focus on the match below his suite’s balcony. Impossible to dismiss the worries/concerns/fears/truths completely, but it was enough—finally—to get them to fade to the point where his too-blue gaze could sharpen upon the sparring figures below. And, though the effort coaxed a low drumming to echo through his head, it was still an effort well-worth the price: Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori moved as if they were of one mind.

Give and take, advance and retreat—each move eased gracefully, seamlessly into another, bo staff clattering and loud in the empty space with each and every hit. Both pilots had been at the match for nearly half an hour already, minutes stretching out into beats of eternity, and yet neither— _neither_ pilot—had managed to yet strike a hit on the other. Anticipating each other, knowing one another at a bone-deep, soul-deep level… here: this is what people meant when they talked about ‘compatibility.’ No doubt, no hesitation; they truly _were_ one person, so heavily buried in each other that they should have been known as Mako &Raleigh than two individuals. Connection in its purest, brightest, _strongest_ form. 

“Vulcans would call them _t'hy'la_.”

The voice came unexpectedly, jarring Jim’s focus upon the sparring pilots, and it was with a migraine finally flexing its merciless claws that Jim glanced up to meet the intense, dark brown gaze of a deceptively petite middle-aged woman. She quirked a smile, small and knowing, and tilted her head to the side just-so. The young Ranger had forgotten his appointment with Amanda Grayson—though, from her coming here, _she_ had certainly not forgotten _Jim_.

“Hello again, Lady Amanda.” The words were quietly spoken, no true emotion filtering in: no pleasure at seeing the older woman, no irritation that she had come through his quarters, nothing—a too-knowing emptiness as Jim once more returned his attention to the match that had continued on through his inattention. Like a dance, expected and expecting, and still there was something heartbreaking in Mako and Raleigh’s sparring match: and it was that low ache that finally prompted Jim to speak further. “…what does it mean? _T’hy'la_.”

The Terran scientist’s smile gentled further at Jim’s inquiry, hands lifting to lightly rest upon the balcony’s railing. “Brother. Sister. Friend. Family. Lover. It changes, many times, depending on the situation—on the relationship. Perhaps… its most important meaning comes with _dahshal s'nash-veh heh worla dahshal. Worla eh kwon-sum estuhn heh vesht estuhl._ Parted from me and never parted. Never and always touching and touched. _T’hy'la_ : everything; home; completeness.”

Silence—stretching on, poignant and highlighted with the steady _clack-clack-clitter-clack_ of the bo staffs below—settled between the older scientist and the orphaned Ranger until, finally (as he was wont to, ever in his character), Jim dryly commented: “Seems like a sorta illogical concept for a species that prides itself on logic above all things.”

The Vulcan Ambassador’s wife smiled further at that, secretive and amused, even as Amanda’s attention returned back to the sparring match below, dark gaze settling comfortably with that not-so-hidden mirth. “Ah, my boy, but Vulcans aren’t _quite_ as logical as they would like to believe.” An observation that came with the weight and irony both of years of observation and firsthand knowledge behind it, and the lilting tone brought Jim’s head up, eyebrows quirking high in invitation for Amanda to continue further.

She didn’t, though the younger man had been half expecting it; lightly, the scientist reached down and brushed her fingers through the golden down of Jim’s roughly shorn hair: touch infinitely gentle, the way one would handle an injured, distrustful animal. “Come. We have a great many tests to run for your Dr. McCoy before the evening meal is set to begin.”

Sparing one last glance for the match still going on below, Jim pushed himself to his feet with a lazy sort of grace, limbs and muscles and skin pulling taut and flexing long beneath his sweats and tank top, and followed after the Lady Amanda without another word.

**

The neural analyzer sparked neon—oranges, pinks, yellows, greens; a blurry, incomprehensible mess that rolled Jim’s stomach and made him fight to keep his rations down—through the blonde man’s mind, and there was nothing that Jim could do to stop the violent flinch that nearly had him flinging the machine across the room. Barely—just barely—able to keep his reaction in check, his hands clenched and unclenched over the chair’s armrests as breaths stuttered in and out and in again, raspy and edged with a desperate sort of hysteria.

Flashbacks.

A throbbing, insistent pulse that started in the back of his brain before moving _everywhere_ , just a little bit out of sync with his heart and all that Jim could truly focus on (make it stop, make it stop, _make it stop_ it’ll drive me insane before the day is out)—

And the reassuring, whispering presence—a shade, if that—of his father, coaxing the debilitating migraine away and murmuring reassurances that Jim hadn’t heard since he was a child. Hearing-not-hearing his father’s voice again, a near-constant state since he had woken up in Bones’ care… it echoed back to his loss, the empty space that would never again be filled within the hollows of his chest; it was a presence that meant that he was crazy- _not_ - _crazy_ , and the Ranger _knew_ that even despite—because?—the failed mission… his psi abilities continued to grow.

The scanner was unnecessary in telling him that.

(How could he _not_ know when everyone’s minds scraped against his own raw thoughts, emotions pouring like salt into open wounds, making social interaction an agony to be endured all while begging silently _don’t let them know don’t let them know they’ll take the Enterprise away from me don’t leave me alone once again_.)

“I apologize, Jim Kirk. If I had known you would have such an adverse reaction to the scanner, I would never have allowed you to undergo this examination.”

The words were gently stated, kinder in tone than anything Jim could ever remember from his own mother (loved them dearly, of course she did, but emotions were oftentimes difficult to be put into words and—perhaps—Winona thought that the taste of her feelings would always be enough for her words-starved youngest). Carefully, the Ranger slowly cracked open one electric blue eye, vision blurry but eventually coming into focus upon the sight of a worriedly hovering Amanda Grayson. Her hands just barely skimmed over his stubble-roughened jawline, dark gaze that much darker with concern, and Jim wanted—so much, _so very, very much_ —to lean into her light touches.

“’s all right,” he instead slurred, moving away from the scientist’s form to settle awkwardly on the other side of the bio bed. “Didn’t know. No harm no foul. ‘nd I’m fine.”

A lie, easily told and easily seen for what it truly was: but Amanda did not press.

Delicately formed hands settled over her stomach, knuckles white with hidden strain, and the older woman inclined her head slightly towards the young man who did and didn’t remind her so much of her own son. But, _ah_ —

“There’s a thought…” she murmured aloud to herself, distraction only taking a second—maybe less—before her chocolate colored gaze once more settled upon Jim. “In all honesty, the readings that I was able to get before the scanner went haywire were… concerning. I think it best to get a second opinion on the matter.” Jim’s reply came silently, but—all the same—it remained telling: an idle, quirked eyebrow as the blue of his eyes burned brighter. “Before the necessary evacuation of Vulcan, my son was enrolled in a specialized program at the VSA. That specialty—“ here, an almost gentle gesture towards the golden-hued man “—relates, somewhat, to the issues that you appear to be suffering from.”

If anything, the Lady Amanda’s words shuttered Jim’s gaze, pulling away with every particle of his being, even as he began to soundlessly head towards the lab’s door.

“I doubt the Federation would be willing to send in one of the Vulcan survivors—a specialist, at that—in order to fix an easily replaceable Jaeger pilot. I’ll be fine, Lady Amanda. Don’t worry about it.”

The last sentence was muffled, Jim already fleeing and more than partway out the door, and Amanda’s lips pursed, thinning dangerously, as she glanced down once more at the neural scanner’s last read-out.

Despite her various specialties, there was little enough that Amanda would be able to do to help the young man—not with the knowledge at her disposal, as vast as it was. But—Spock—there was a very good chance that _he_ would be able to help, would be able to put his own knowledge to use (and, always and forever, her beautiful son had loved a puzzle to solve).

Because while Jim Kirk believed himself to be easily disposable by the Federation…

It was the furthest from the truth.

 _How heavy this burden is, weighing down upon your shoulders_ , she thought to herself, even as her steps led her unfaltering towards the nearest comm unit.


End file.
